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Walhalla, SC -- Blue Highway's heralded vocalist, songwriter, and instrumentalist Shawn Lane and Clemson University engineer associate Brad Poore announced today the introduction of a new Limited Edition I-Tone Pick. The Limited Edition Onyx is streamlined jet black with a heavier, thicker feel, due to a special diamond hardening agent being added to the original I-Tone material.

On Friday, September 9th, Cybergrass celebrated 25 years of promoting bluegrass music on the world wide web. What started out as a learning and research project has evolved into one of the most popular bluegrass web sites in the world. Cybergrass, the world's oldest music and bluegrass music web site, changed over to a new format a few years ago. The site continues to grow even with all the thousands of other bluegrass sites on the web. What a wonderful way to celebrate a quarter century of bluegrass information on the web!

Today, one cannot possibly record a typical album without tens of thousands of dollars of equipment, gadgets, pedals, auto-tune and a myriad of other technologies. Mixing boards consisting of various filters, equalizers, 128 or more channels all feeding digital recorders with the same number of channels. Artists and musicians can be recording each of their respective parts individually -- often in different recording studios and even hundreds of miles apart. That is the evolution of the music that has taken place during the past quarter century.

Recently I have read comments by several artists regarding the high costs of recording an album today. All the engineers, the super expensive equipment, all the digital elementa, time and, of course the talent. This got me to thinking about some of the best albums that I own. Albums on Deutsche Grammophon, albums by extremely talented artists like Mike Oldfield and, all those wonderful albums from the '60s through the '80s.

Walhalla, SC -- Blue Highway's heralded vocalist, instrumentalist, and songwriter Shawn Lane and Clemson University engineer associate Brad Poore have unveiled a game-changing new flat pick called the I-Tone Pick. The I-Tone Pick is made from the same material used by NASA in construction of the Space Shuttle. The almost indestructible material has one of the highest wear and temperature ratings known to man, and delivers crystal clear tone and clarity when it strikes the strings.

Nashville, TN – Grammy-award winning producer, songwriter and musician John McEuen (one of the founding members of Nitty Gritty Dirt Band) steps up the pace in preparation for the release of his new solo album titled Made In Brooklyn.* Scheduled to drop Friday, September 30, 2016 on Chesky Records, the project will be available via all major digital retail outlets (Amazon, iTunes, HD Tracks, etc.).

Back in the day, all the top hit albums were recorded on tape. Some on just four to eight tracks mixed down to two. Recording studios were populated with Teac, Ampex, JBL speakers, Tascam boards and, for the most part, were pretty much the same. The age of digital alteration didn't exist. You got what the mics recorded. Bands had to be good in the studio and well as on stage. Many albums were done in just a few takes -- some in just one. That music is still some of the finest ever recorded. No fancy exotic gear like we have today.

Yes it’s true ... the SongFarmer album was completely recorded on an iPhone. An iPhone 6-plus, actually. As far as we know, this is the first national album release to be recorded this way. It’s an acoustic album recorded with the new Martin 0000-28s guitar and long neck Deering Vega Banjo.

Nazareth, PA -- C.F. Martin & Co. will exclusively debut a new pickup and preamp system in 2016, the Aura® VT Enhance™ acoustic amplification by Fishman®, which offers the most advanced technology, Aura Acoustic Imaging, to preserve the unique and pristine acoustic tone of each instrument with studio microphone quality. In addition, the new streamlined Matrix VT Enhance™ will be offered on select models.

Ontario, CA -- WirelessGuys announced this week, the successful design and deployment of secure temporary WIFI service for high volume onsite ticket sales and point-of-sale purchases at the 39th annual Huck Finn Jubilee in Ontario, CA. Established in 1975, the Huck Finn Jubilee is currently produced by the Greater Ontario Convention & Visitors Bureau and is held at the Cucamonga-Guasti Regional Park in Ontario, CA. The Jubilee is a three day family friendly festival celebrating traditional music, education, activities and the evolution of bluegrass music.

Audio-Techcnica expands their online video series by exploring Mic techniques in real-world applications. Their new videos cover mic techniques for various instruments including banjo, brass instruments, dobro, mandolin, organ, piano, saxophone, small ensembles, stereo techniques, strings and woodwinds. Audio-Technica, a leading innovator in transducer technology for over 50 years, has posted the latest videos in its series exploring different aspects of mic technique, mic placement and more. Utilizing some of Audio-Technica’s most acclaimed and popular products – including 40 Series, Artist Elite®, 20 Series and others – these videos illustrate various tips and tricks for capturing audio in real-world applications.

What prompted this article is that my registration on some bluegrass related email and websites has been compromised. I have received various emails that certainly confirm this. If you operate a web site or use a newsletter distribution service, you probably only give it a casual thought about security. What are they going to steal? Why would anybody want to mess with us -- we're too small? What's the worst that can happen? And, other questions. Have you asked about your liability exposure if your assets are compromised? Do you regularly check your logs looking for requests that don't seem right and then, making decisions based on your findings? Probably not.

Nashville, TN -- The International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) announced an added bonus for those attending IBMA’s World of Bluegrass event, September 30-October 4, in Raleigh, North Carolina: “Wide Open Wifi” - free access to wifi within the Raleigh Convention Center, courtesy of Raleigh-based telecommunications company celito.

Today's Internet capable devices come in a wide variety of colors, sizes, shapes, operating systems, ... Unfortunately, more and more websites are only supporting a subset of what is available. There are probably dozens of different browsers out there but, if you're not using one of the primary three, many sites just don't work. Some still use the old paradigm of telling the customer to use a different browser that the site supports. I visited a site to order an album for my wife. After going through the entire ordering process, the button to finalize the deal didn't work. I could click on it until the world ends but it was unresponsive. So, I couldn't do business there. I was forced to find another vendor site and order the album from them instead.

Today, it is essential to have a SPAM filter for email. After many years of using the same email address that is associated with my business, probably 80% of what comes to the server is junk email. The other 20% is what I want to read. It used to be easy to filter the good from the bad. The good came from a business email address - not a freebie account from some other service. Everything after the @ sign indicated who the email was from and you could easily say to accept all email from businessname.com. Today a lot of new folks are trying to get into the biz using gmail, yahoo, hotmail or other anonymous email domains instead of a more professional domain name.